Perseverance and Two great bits of News

Perseverance and Two great bits of News

Two Great Bits of News

Firstly, in September 2008, I had my first meeting with ITN. In December 2016 they became a customer. 8 Years. Now that is perseverance! In 2008 we had 3 customers (well 2), in 2017 there are over 150 MatrixStore DCG (Digital Content Governance) platforms out there. A lot has happened in those 8 years. See below to find out what!

Secondly, we are proud to have signed a deal with CineSys-Oceana in the USA and Canada. They will be our hands, eyes and ears in those markets. We are very excited to get working with Brent and the team. Following my “LA or Bust” trip to the US last summer Object Matrix has gained traction, and more importantly, customers in that territory. The perseverance of JeT in bringing the two companies together is to be admired!

What’s happened since 2008?

2008 (Biggest disk available:1.5TB)

Object Matrix adds greater flexibility for those wishing to integrate the MatrixStore object storage into their nearline, archive and business continuity workflows. It is now possible to implement, and procure, the platform in the following ways:

The BBC iPlayer went live and since then IPTV has completely changed our viewing habits and forged new viewing behaviour in younger generations.

Google also launched Voice Search, what’s that you say? Just ask Alexa!

Object Matrix however changed tack as we were rubbish at positioning our product and selling an API 9 years ago was tough. We moved from an apple and software only focus (waaaay ahead of our time) to appliances and the creative industries. Some companies told us we were too small to work with and yet some of those companies were relying on big lumps of Sun Microsystems Thumper devices to protect their assets.

2009 (Biggest disk available: 2TB)

Sun Microsystems all but disappears (mopped up by Oracle) and inductive power was set to be all the rage. It’s sort of making a dent now but its still on the fringes. In the broadcast market files started the real to transition from tapes.

OM made the decision to only focus on the UK, well in fact Wales! If you cannot sell on your doorstep forget selling elsewhere. Think Global start local and all that! We made a commitment to either gain 10 new customers in that year or finally throw the towel in. Focus won. We gained 14 customers including Mwnci (Now Gorilla) and the BBC. I also had dinner with the Julien Gachot and the then French prime minister’s wife (along with 30 other people). What could possibly be wrong with that?

2010 (Biggest disk available: 3TB)

The year of the ipad. Apple certainly changed the way we consumed digital content that year though my kids still use it exclusively for games. Since then there are a myriad of worthy competitors that offer much more flexibility. Apple’s rigid, and expensive, approach may well be its downfall. Before you moan, who would have thought Nokia, Blackberry etc would be where they are today in the mobile market. In 2003 when Object Matrix started, Nokia sold 350 million phones and had a market share of 35%. In 2016? Nada in terms of market share. It is indeed possible for kings and queens to fall.

OM carried on where it left off in 2009 by integrating MatrixStore object storage with applications that our prospective customers actually used on a daily basis. Bringing disruptive technology in a non-disruptive manner is a lot easier than telling people to speak to an API. We integrated MatrixStore with Avid platforms and BT became a customer securing its assets for its VoD platform.

2011 (Biggest disk available: 4TB)

The launch of Google+. Less said about that really. It also saw the launch of Siri from Apple and IVORY in Paris. One of those three would have a big impact on Object Matrix!

OM continued to add clients to the UK and attended the SATIS expo in Paris for the first time.

2012 (Biggest disk available: 4TB)

2012 saw the Facebook IPO showing the value not so much in the benefits of social networks more the value of exploiting tonnes of user generated content, behaviour and metadata.

For OM it was the year of creating two hugely important and long-lasting partnerships. If you are going to engage in export then you need good partners. The CIS Group in Miami and Ivory in France are the best you can get. It was also a great year for OM as we crossed La Manche to expand our horizons bringing the first major customers in France.

2013 (Biggest disk available: 5TB)

2013 saw the smartwatch emerge, the big data leak from Snowdon and co. along with the release of the first helium filled disk drive.

Whilst engineers across the globe try to suck the helium out of broken drives Object Matrix was selling its first petabyte systems to customers. It took us 7 years to sell a petabyte in total so this was big news. We also won our first customers in Latin America.

2014 (Biggest disk available: 8TB)

People were droning on about the announcement of the Apple watch. See that? Two big tech trends in 2014 in one sentence. Drones = more cameras = more storage required. More drones please barkeep.

For OM the integrations with 3rd party vendors in the broadcast tech space also reaps benefits with new customers in new territories. We also started with the framework for process in place (PiP) allowing content to be processed, well, in place!

2015 (Biggest disk available: 10TB)

That watch is released, your television is spying on you and Elon wants to put a big battery under your home. Autonomous car testing was also permitted in 5 US states heralding the start of the driverless car revolution.

Cloud services are becoming more popular for good reasons and for populist reasons. Organisations wildly throwing data to the cloud without a thought of the cost to retrieve. OM began preparations to offer MatrixStore as a Service, an offering that will disrupt current public cloud offerings providing tailored support for the media and entertainment market.

Whilst replication functionality has been a tenet of MatrixStore since day one, more organisations start to take implementing a business continuity platform more seriously. We deployed a DR and BC platform in Brazil for one of the worlds largest broadcasters in a multiple Avid Interplay PAM environment. A world first.

2016 (Biggest disk available: 10TB)

The world went absolutely bloody mad.

Whilst that was happening Object Matrix had its best year yet. We gained two new globally recognised customers in the USA and introduced a new platform to view content called Vision. Our customers love it.

2017 (Biggest disk available: 5TB)

Looks to be more of the same for the world in general but again for OM, so far, it has been brilliant. We have introduced the concept of DCG (Digital Content Governance) and it is resonating with organisations that need more than just a storage platform to implement strategic plans. Oh and that Mwnci cluster installed back in 2009? Still running. 8 years old and still purring. Some assets can and should sweat.

Key Lessons Learned in those 8 years

Focus Focus Focus or pin your hopes on Hocus Pocus.

Get your butt out there. Meet people. If they like you and what you do they might just buy.

Believe. If you don’t believe. Stop. Go home. If you do. As you were.

Be doggedly stubborn. 8 years to close a deal? If you can build and maintain the relationship and your technology stays current, why not?

Above all else persevere.

About Object Matrix

Object Matrix is the leading provider of object storage and nearline archive solutions to the media/entertainment industry. Based in Cardiff (UK), it has an impressive track record for providing tightly integrated digital preservation platforms and is trusted by global broadcasters, telcos, banks and utilities companies to ensure their video content is always available. Customers include Globo, Fox Sports, France Télévisions, BT, the BBC, Imagina, NBC Universal, Deutsche Bank & the Miami Heat to name a few.

Object Matrix is comprised of a team of storage industry experts with a shared vision for high levels of data security combined with intuitive user interfaces. In addition to providing solutions and product integrations for the storage, search and retrieval of media assets, Object Matrix also provides consultancy, training, systems integration, and ongoing support services.